Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Insurance for Water Damage San Francisco Homes


Insurance for San Francisco Water Damaged Homes

When water causes damage to your San Francisco home, cleanup and restoration should be done completely at the soonest possible time. As such, it is a very difficult task to accomplish, especially if the degree of damage is severe.
It would be such a horrible experience witnessing your water damage San Francisco home, including valuable belongings. But what’s more alarming is when the structural integrity of your home is affected. It would then be very challenging to restore your home to its previous state and start your life over again. Shock and severe anxiety are normal emotional reactions to disasters of this magnitude; but these should not get in the way of you being in control with the situation. Though it may be very challenging, face the predicament with confidence and composure.
However, there are proven methods that you can use to handle water damage in the best manner possible. For more information please see the EPA website: http://www.epa.gov/mold/i-e-r.html

Insurance Plans - First Step to Water Damage Restoration

Damage sustained from water invasion can be of varying intensities. Sometimes, it’s just your living room or bathroom that is affected; but oftentimes the damage covers the entire area of your house. The most common form of water damage is flood damage which is triggered by natural weather conditions (storms and snowmelt) as well as man-made reasons (faulty dams and broken pipes).
Flood damage is the most formidable form water damage. One very important thing to bear in mind is to seek for the assistance that you need by informing your insurance agent about the disaster at the soonest possible time so that they can immediately help you file and process your assistance claim.
Filing an insurance claim requires presenting certain important documents; and your insurance agent can assist you in coming up with these requirements so you can immediately present them to your insurance company. The requirements may include videos and photos of the damages sustained from the water invasion. You also have the option to present an invoice from the water damage cleanup experts that you hired to repair your house, as an alternative to video and photo documentation in filing your claim.

Restoring your Home’s Structural Integrity following San Francisco Water Damage

After claiming the insurance, the next step would definitely be to start repairing the damaged parts of your house. Some parts of your house are not that easy to cleanup or repair; such as the damaged floors. Water damaged floors occur in almost every case and incident of water damage; this is somewhat an inevitable occurrence. This especially holds true if your home has flooring covered with wooden material or carpets.



In restoring your water-damaged floors, you have to assess the extent of the damage and decide whether it would be wiser to just keep the existing flooring or to completely replace them with new materials. Complete replacement is usually expensive and may require great amounts of time and effort; but it is usually more cost-effective because it decreases the possibilities of mold growth that can compromise health and safety.
Furthermore, water-damaged ceilings are more common in 2 or 3-storey houses. The water pipes toward the second floor usually get broken or damaged; causing water invasion that damages the ceilings. Other than that, floods don’t usually damage the ceilings of a house. Therefore, it’s not something that is serious and difficult to handle. You can restore it in a DIY manner.
Water damaged basements on the other hand, are quite difficult to deal with. The basement area is extremely susceptible to moisture elimination to the extent that even you succeeded in drying up the area, you can never tell if moisture has been completely eradicated. Therefore restoring water damaged basements is something best performed by water damage cleanup and repair experts. The IICRC provide the water damage industries standards of care: http://www.iicrc.org/index.shtml

When to Seek Expert Assistance:

If you feel that you restoring your home from water damage is beyond your reasonable human capacities, don’t have a second thought to hire a team of water damage cleanup professionals. This is a very important option to take into consideration especially if your home sustained serious forms of damage
Deciding on this option greatly determines the outcome of water damage cleanup and repair; which can only either be success or failure. And since home safety determines overall health and well-being, you should by all means settle with the best: hiring water damage cleanup professionals.

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